Life and times of an almost 40 virgin

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Monthly Archives: November 2016

last year i wrote about getting some benefits. benefits had been one of the reasons i left “the show” i.e beyond free movies i got jack. other than that i found two jobs that offered the benefits i had been looking for primarily health i never thought beyond that.

this past summer the associated of my company had a benefits vote to choose various options in addition to some new offerings. something i took advantage of even if what i would like didn’t go forward such as for example identity theft protection.

either way one evening i just decided to explain to my coworker the compensation/promotion structure with my former employers at “the show”. i told him matter of factly that if i got promoted to manager – well actually supervisor level – i’d get no benefits. to which he retorted that if one gets 40+ of work they should get benefits.

i had to explain to him that the company itself could find a way to skirt the law so that they wouldn’t have to provide benefits. for example, they can just turn around and say supervisors can’t work more than 40 hours they can only work 35 hours a week. boom don’t want to provide benefits that’s a way out. i’d get paid slightly better but that’s all.

now, having left “the show” over two years ago i know my worth. i spend most of my working life hovering around the minimum wage and then suddenly with a job at the bank and then moving onto a job in the grocery business my income went up. i say this to say i wanted to get to management/supervisor level at the show.

to get up to full-management – that is for “the show” senior management – i’d have to go through the supervisory level. as time went on i was no longer interested even if deep down i never got there for reasons semi-unknown. and when leaving that company and figuring out what other companies offered whether i had standing over other employees or not it turns out perhaps there was no boat to miss.

if i understood correct senior management is a salaried position and they get the benefits. not sure the extent of the benefits but they got them. and as with supervisors there seems to be a subjective process in who gets promoted, that is they choose you. you don’t get an opportunity to apply for such positions.

either way i learned of one of the senior managers through a coworker. she had quit suddenly and unexpectedly apparently she had been unhappy for a long time. that coworker claimed she was working a part-time job as a bank teller for better benefits and was forced to quit when her bosses found out. and my worker mentioned this tome as it was time for me to interview with the same bank that this manager briefly worked for.

well what does this mean, well even the hotshot senior managers who should’ve had it made still weren’t getting what they’re due with their positions with the company. perhaps on that level there was no boat to miss either. just as with getting to the supervisor level.

now i had to explain to my friend getting to the senior manager level is like getting into what we call store leadership. the store managers are considered salaried however department managers are still considered hourly. now supervisors are considered as shift managers and they’re the level of the supervisors under the various department managers.

so basically we both agreed that this was a shitty deal. this year we do it all over again and decide which benefits we want to take advantage of for the coming year.

i worked on thanksgiving. at the show it would just be a day paid at the regular rate, but at the grocery store it’s a day paid at double time. a five hour shift paid as if i worked ten hours. awesome moving on up in the world! afterwards i caught a movie which is not far from where i work unfortunately it wasn’t a holiday themed movie an action thriller and it was good.

sat around the house the next day just decided to not go anywhere. it was ok and it never occurred to me how dark it gets earlier and earlier. needless to say winter is coming and here in chicago we’ve been spoiled with the nice weather for most of october and november.

saturday guess who i saw – hugs. i never thought i’d write about her again she came by her former store to see her old coworkers with her boyfriend. ahhhhhh, she’s such a sweet young woman if i shot my shot i’d find a way to screw it up. she came to the store around xmas last year and never had the chance to speak this time i did and let her know i missed her. more accurately i missed working with her. she still works with the company at a location in boston.

btw, i applied in november to return to the movies as a worker. supplemental income of course and even though i rarely use it free movie tickets also. perhaps the goal could always be being a manager at a theater the main goal i have right now is to move up in the grocery business. in the meanwhile i can treat the theater gig as just a fun distraction more than anything. even better hopefully a better environment.

this time i applied to the facility near my store. next i may apply to the one that i helped to open last year. i somewhat miss that place but my attendance was shitty there. if i do it, i need to insure that i’ll be able to come to work and this means i have to make some arrangements with my main benefited employers also.

oh yeah i saw one of the managers at the new show on the train. wasn’t in a position to get their attention, but i wonder what would have happened if i did. perhaps i’d indicate my interest in returning in some capacity. that’s a bridge i never crossed unfortunately.

i talk so much negativity about “the show” consider the fact that i used to refer to it as “shitplace”. my decision long ago was only to just not be so vulgar and then enable me to say some positive things.

so let me tell you at times i dread a busy night, but it was cool to see people come to the show. sometimes it was a drag because not only you got the nice people you also got people who brought their attitudes to the movies with them. i could say the same for many of the employees but this post isn’t necessarily about them and i’ve said what i needed to say about them.

one cool thing about that job was the convenience, it was relatively close to downtown chicago. for a number of years there was little action there as it was located in a shopping center that was all vacant until my eventual departure. it was also the one job i was able to drive to and often park for free in the parking garage.

i was able to watch so many movies during downtime whether or not on an unpaid break. some of the people i met there – especially anthony – i’m still in touch with to this day. can’t say for some of the eligible and attractive young women i met. there has to be some form of effort with that on my part. of course there are many who won’t be worth the time of day.

also in part due to my work history – where i had little to no employment in my 20s – this was the longest tenured job i’ve ever held. a record hopefully to be surpassed by my current employers at a grocery store. even if i spent most of my time at “the show” frustrated it was something of a success and i learned some skill even if the young people around me never took advantage of some of the simple aspects of making sales.

another thing i should learn from this experience is that no one has any right to treat me with no respect and to find ways to quell any disrespect. and sometimes it matters not if they continue to persist which they will. the main thing is to not lose my head in the commotion keep cool and just remove myself from the situation.

another thing to consider is that talking one day with anthony he considered this gig a cakewalk. people liked to complain but it really was a simple job. my thoughts are that there are those who were just there to complain about the smallest issues while not doing a whole lot of work themselves.

of course one of my disappointments about this place was that i was never promoted. one way to fix that is to talk to the leadership. or at the very least find someone you can talk to about it and hope they will put your name forward. another thing to be mindful of is who you work with, you never know what’s going on in their minds and it may blindside you.

another friend of mine learned that with other coworkers but only after i had left and he got promoted to supervisor. he got let go because some of the workers with whom he worked before promotion decided to make him a target. either way another lesson learned.

bottom line i miss some of the excitement of the movie especially being on the inside. although i work at a grocery store now and get paid much better than at “the show” the excitement is of a different type and can’t compare to the theater. in fact it’s one reason i returned to the business briefly almost a year after leaving.

even though i don’t consider “the show” my scene anymore sometimes i return to it just to reminisce. i have yet to go to a movie there since i left, but it would be worth it at some point in the future. another thing anthony liked to say is that it’s not the place but it’s people and i’ve accepted that he’s right. just one thing it can be hard to separate the people from the place.

now i can finally consider from where i come from to where i am today. life is always about growth and there’s still more to do. maybe i’ll cross paths with the theater business again and maybe i’ll move up in that world the day i do. in the meanwhile what am i going to do where i am now?

so this is one of the more unusual honesty box exchange i ever had. a young lady decided to message me regarding my mafia wars activity indicating that she doesn’t like it. whoever it was probably had me on her mind more than she realizes.

they said,
I\’m getting tired of all your mafia wars shit. Get a life
—
you said,
babe. you can go fuck yourself
—
they said,
wow you stepped away from mafia wars to tell me this. there is hope. Oh by the way I already did that today.
—
you said,
lol i don’t need to know that you masturbated but turned on that you did.
—

The woman i suspect of writing this message dropped me off her list after this exchange. i’m sure that she had been disappointed by my interactions with her online. especially since i often would message her through hb and unfortunately wouldn’t reciprocate. at some point she lost interest anyway.

on saturday night one of the ladies in the other dept noted that she remembered that becky bought me a cupcake and it had writing on it. the young lady who recently got promoted to supervisor we’ll call her gerry was in fact there that day, her coworker mary – aka crazy vibes – wrote on that cake although gerry didn’t exactly remember.

part of me could take this to mean something. that is well if i’m not a very important part of her work life let’s say then what happened last year was quickly forgotten. it happens often enough especially when i make the wrong move then someone is mad at me. then for a minute the relationship goes cold or that person needs an excuse anyway.

gerry i’ve been led to believe is in her 30s and outside of my race. for some reason i’ve had my eye on her, but unsure how to approach. in fact, i alluded to her in “awkward” a while ago an unsolicited friend request from someone who used to work at our store “professed” his love for her and she accepted a date with him.

physically she’s not perfect, but decent. she doesn’t seem like the friendliest person in the world – she’s not mean or anything – perhaps temperament wise she’s similar to me. although i’ve always imagined myself with a more extroverted person at least as a wife, but this isn’t about marriage it’s about getting to know these women before i even get to that step.

i suggested she finds me on fb and perhaps i’ll make it easier for her. we have mutual friends including becky so it may not be a tough sell. perhaps the next time i see her i’ll give her the e-mail address to find me and see what happens. or more likely since we do have several mutual friends i’ll just have to do the manly thing and aggressively add her to see what happens.

either way the reason i gave was i learned on that evening that her birthday is fairly close to mine. so that means we’re both sagittarius…hmmmm.

Spoke to anthony for the first time in a while. He had some dental issues as of late and wasn’t able to speak without pain so we hadn’t talked to each other in a while.

He had been fired up over this recent election. Said some rather hot rhetoric but we talked about other subjects.

We wound up on my love life. I often like to go to the show by myself. Then he starts launching off into if you don’t start dating they’re going to laugh at you wondering where you been. Seemed hurtful but I tried not to be moved by it.

He worried me about plenty of fish for the first time in years. He was on top of it for a while a few years ago but seeing my lack of interest stopped him. I’m watching the world go by but not living in it according to him.

To which I say with that he’s made a point with that. It seems that’s what happens with me and I have little problem staying in place. At that same time it’s time for me to make some moves.

Time for my own place though I have yet to decide where I should live. Time for my own vehicle although at the moment I may not be doing a whole lot of driving. Either to work or anywhere else aside from a quick trip to the suburbs.

My focus right now is to save my money and apparently get things for myself that I never did get at a different time. Perhaps for those boots I never had been able to buy for myself or that laptop and I can go on and on. Main thing is to be able to support myself whether I stay home or move out on my own. My final goal is hopefully own property only as soon as I finally get a handle on student loans.

Of course the main thing I wish for is a stable relationship. Perhaps then are some of these other goals possible.

Anthony doesn’t know that I’ve been talking to women texting back and forth with one in particular. Also there’s tinder, I’ve been getting some play but no dates as of yet.

I would call it progress as of now although something is going to give at some point. If any woman laughs at my lack of success with dating then I don’t need her anyway.

the month before a coworker anthony suddenly quit “the show”. he had found a security job and one of his postings had been at a grocery store which later announced they were leaving the chicago area. i actually visited him at a nearby store when i got off from my job one evening to speak to him.

he had been campaigning for a security job for parts of that year. been wanting a union job and didn’t mind the odd hours of security. he really fell in for the pay and benefits in addition to not seeing any bosses during the course of his shift.

unfortunately this job didn’t last long i learned he was there according to him for seven months and i learned this after leaving the theater a year later. he had found two other jobs the next year and attempted to help me get on at both places.

i want to note that he put that local theater management job on my radar when i wouldn’t have been confident in getting the job. i was confident at the interview unfortunately however the owner made her decision it went opposition of i would get the job.

in any case he was keen on getting me to do security with him. as much as i may hate customer service in some respects i’ll pick my poison. the idea of working alone at night doing security didn’t appeal to me. i made that clear to him and he didn’t seem to like that as i was stagnant where i was at “the show”.

a few weeks after he quit, we talked on the phone and i was saying negative things about the theater. he shot off a quick, “you like it there”. he noted my lack of progress in getting out of that place and just used it against me. finally he just said “i’ve given you leads and you won’t take advantage of them you’re going to find what you’re looking for”. he was saying he wasn’t going to help me out anymore.

by this i was taken aback and somewhat upset because i don’t know where this was coming from. at this point i was in the middle of a streak where i get interviews but no job. at that point when anthony quit, the streak of no interviews had finally ended as i had no more interviews during that spring and summer.

in the meanwhile, as i found possible jobs my lack of progress made it easier for anthony to start blowing me off with the basic no keep looking you’ll find what you’re looking for line. later when he decides to call me to beg for money, his behavior towards me made it easier for me to decide not to take his calls for a while.

before that whole episode i had one interview at a suburban movie theater and had anthony inquire as to who are the key people at two other theaters as i knew he had the gift of gab to find this information out. he did that but only after beating me up for just engaging me in tough talk letting me know if i didn’t follow this up we just won’t talk much about jobs anymore. he was being tough but i was offended by this behavior.

either way things would begin to work out, i just didn’t know it at the time. for another year almost i had to stay in a frustrating situation for a little while longer.

"He brought me to his banquet hall and raised the banner of love over me. Restore my strength with raisins and refresh me with apples! I am weak from passion... His left hand is under my head and his right hand caresses me" - Song of Solomon 2:4-6